Shepherds Pie

Shepherds Pie

 

Start by sautéing a diced medium size onion

 

 

Once you get that going add some carrot diced small. I used 2 small-medium size carrots.

Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium heat about 5 min or so. The carrots won't be cooked through at this point.

 

Add 1LB of ground meat. I used beef cause that's what I had. You can use lamb, pork or a combination. It's traditionally made with ground lamb.

 

You will probably need to drain some of the fat. SO just push everything to one side, tilt your pan and spoon out most of the fat.

Then add this much minced garlic.

 

Add a couple heaping TBL of tomato paste right away. I did twice as much as I show in this picture.

 

Also add 2 stalks of rosemary chopped

 

It's important that you don't take 5 minutes to do all this because you only want the garlic to cook for a min or so. I threw my garlic in the pan on top of the meat so it wasn't directly on the pan and then added the tomato paste and rosemary before mixing everything together for a min.

 

Then add red wine. I use these mini bottles because it's just the right amount. I guess it's probably about 1 cup- 1 1/2cups?

 

Then add about the same amount of beef stock. A little more or a little less doesn't really matter that much.

 

Let this cook and the sauce reduce for 10-15 min or until it looks saucy but when you move the meat mixture you can see the bottom of the pan like this.

 

Meanwhile you can have your potatoes already boiling and they should be done by now. Mash them however you like to do it. I add some butter and usually either sour cream, plain greek yogurt, milk, or half and half. You can always use my Garlic mashed potato recipe as a guide. I would leave the garlic out for this recipe though. Also add plenty of salt and pepper. Taste them to make sure the seasoning is good.

 

Spread the potatoes over the meat mixture. I used a pan that was oven safe so I didn't have to transfer my meat mixture.

 

I put it in the oven at this point for about 10 min and then got impatient so I turned the broiler on and the potatoes started getting brown after 5 min. Next time I will probably just use the broiler.

 

There you go!